Pramac Racing will end an almost twenty-year collaboration with Ducati as a satellite team to embrace Yamaha’s offer, a possibility that has been seriously on the table for months and which was reported on Sky Sport Italia on Wednesday. After contacting both teams, Motorsport.com was able to confirm that the decision has been made and the official announcement will be made this weekend in Assen, where the Dutch Grand Prix, the eighth round of the 2024 MotoGP calendar, will take place.
With the decision to leave Ducati, Pramac renounces a two-year contract as the first team partner of the Bologna-based manufacturer, with the right to two motorcycles with the most recent specifications, a status it has enjoyed since 2020 and for which Ducati has set an expiry date at end of 2026. A decision that is at the basis of the disagreement between the house and Campinoti, and which ultimately led to a premature breakup.
Pramac entered the MotoGP World Championship in 2002, sponsoring Team Honda Racing, and in 2005 joined Team D’Antin, which already fielded Ducatis. Since then the relationship between the manufacturer and Campinoti has gone through positive and negative moments, until in 2020 Pramac became a team partner, enjoying the manufacturer’s best equipment.
Last year the two parties reached an agreement to continue working together in 2025 and 2026, with the same conditions and the same material. This year, however, Campinoti has detected growing interest from Ducati in the VR46, and the manufacturer has even raised the possibility of Pramac “handing over” a factory bike to Valentino Rossi’s team, sparking war between the two parties.
A very advantageous agreement with Yamaha
Yamaha’s first choice when it came to regaining the satellite team lost two seasons ago was none other than Rossi’s VR46, a legendary rider and ambassador for the Iwata brand. But the response was immediately negative and Pramac became the “plan B”.
Although negotiations were never interrupted, before the Italian Grand Prix all the signs from the team were to remain with Ducati, but at Mugello Marc Marquez’s refusal to sign for Pramac made this decision.
Ducati had reached an agreement with Jorge Martin to bring him to the official team and had proposed to Pramac to create a second official structure to give Marquez a home, but the Spaniard said: “Pramac is not an option for me”.
This changed everything, Ducati backed out of the deal with Martin, signed Marc and Pramac made the decision to leave. “We spent 20 years in MotoGP without Marquez, we can stay without him next season too,” Campinoti said at Mugello.
This weekend, taking advantage of the return to activity and the proximity to June 30, the deadline for Pramac to renounce the agreement with Ducati for 2025 and 2026 without penalties, the Italian team will officially announce that it will leave Ducati at the end of the season. Yamaha will then announce the agreement with Pramac.
Pending details, the agreement will be multi-year, first until the end of 2026, the date on which the manufacturers’ contract with Dorna will expire, and subsequently, with the entry into force of the new MotoGP technical regulations, Pramac will enjoy a contract in the long term to become a partner team with official Yamaha material, which will charge a reduced price for the bikes and pay the riders.
In this chapter, one of the twists of the summer could be the arrival of Turkish driver Toprak Razgatlioglu, although he will first have to free himself from his current contract with BMW.
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